God Gives the Growth

Psalter

Psalm 119:1–8 NRSV

1 Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. 2 Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart, 3 who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. 4 You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. 5 O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! 6 Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. 7 I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. 8 I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.

Opening Prayer

Come, Holy One: teach us your ways, lead us in your paths, guide us on our journey. Speak to us your words of life, for you offer us direction and wholeness when we hear your voice and follow. You bless us with your love, shower us with your grace, and help us grow in faith. We seek you, O God, with all our hearts. Be near us this day. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Almighty God, you have shown us the way to happiness by giving us the example of your law. We seek to be happy in you, and we thank you for your care. You have laid out the paths for us to follow, and you remain with us on the journey. For your mercy, we sing praises to your Name.

You have set before us the ways of life and death. We confess that we often choose those ways which lead away from you. We try to make believe that to follow the letter of the law is enough, and so we fail to honor your commandments with our thoughts. We get caught up - like small children - in worrying about who will get the credit, instead of consecrating all our work to you. We want life; we choose death. Forgive us our shortcomings, have mercy on our failings, and restore us once more, O God.

Lord God, you have given us the mission to spread your Good News to all the earth. We know it is only by your Spirit that we are able to please you. Send upon us this day a fresh outpouring of that same Spirit that we may obey you, love you and hold fast to you.

Receive this day, O God, our special concerns for those of your children who are wandering down the path of physical death. Have mercy on them. Heal those who are sick and restore those who are in any kind of trouble. Show them the path of life, even eternal life.

Eternal God, show us again and again the path which leads to you - the path of life which loves your law, and the new life which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us to pray by saying...

Children’s Message

The problem in the Corinthian church and the language with which Paul addresses it are beyond the understanding and experience of children. Paul's message about the immaturity of arguing and jealousy, however, does speak clearly to them. Children, often warned not to act like babies, enjoy Paul's telling the adults that they are acting like babies when they fuss and argue. That chuckle opens the door to discussion of our tendency, at all ages, to such behavior, and the challenge to grow beyond it.

Scripture Lesson

1 Corinthians 3:1–9 NRSV

1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Introduction

Over the last several weeks, we have spent time in the first few chapters of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In this time, we have asked the question about what it means to be a saint of God and looked at what the qualities of a saint are. We said that to be a saint one must only accept Christ as Savior. It is from that point that our lives begin to reflect him. We talked about how saints are not lacking in anything because God has given us everything that we need for the work he has set before us. We said that our baptism calls us to be of the same mind and purpose in Christ. We talked about how we have a call on our lives that makes us different from the world and is a call that is focused on the cross. Last week, we talked about how saints are to proclaim Christ with our lives so that all might see him through us. Today in our final sermon in this series for Epiphany, we are focused on growth.

Like many of you, I grew up on a farm growing crops and animals. This was an act of faith every year. We sold some of our vegetables at farmer’s markets and local grocery stores, but we also used it for our food throughout the year. We grew green beans, corn, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. My mother, aunts, and grandmother would can and put up all of these things for the winter. We would have fresh cantalopues and watermelons each week at Sunday dinner. It was something that we relied on for our sustance. But if a bad storm or a late frost came, it would hinder that crop. We would water and weed the crops and make sure they were taken care of. But in the end, there was nothing we could do to actually make it grow. No one went out to the garden and phyically forced plants to sprout. It just happened. Every day throughout the growing season, we would see a little more and a little more until finally it was time to go and pick the crops. It truly was an act of faith.

It is the same in our spiritual lives. We work with God along the path of sanctification as the Spirit guides us and shapes us more and more into the image of Christ. But in the end, we are not the ones who do the sanctifying and growing. It is God’s action. Today, we learn from Paul what it means for us to grow in our faith and in the end truly be the saints that God calls us to be. As Paul continues with his introduction in this letter, he takes them back to when he first arrived in Corinth and how he provided to them the simple message of the gospel of Christ that is focused on the cross and resurrection. It is this message that provides the backdrop for Paul helping the Corinthians and us to understand what it means for us to truly be a saint of God.

1. Saints grow in maturity. (vs. 1-4)

1 Corinthians 3:1–4 NRSV

1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

Ephesians 4:13 NRSV

13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

The Corinthians were caught up in their own understanding of spiritual maturity. They had knowledge and great speech. They were great in their own eyes. But Paul calls them out. They were not mature; in fact, they acted like little children. Paul had given them spiritual baby food, and they had not matured when others had come. Instead, they focused on their favorite preacher. They were living in the flesh and not in the Spirit. They were focused on human inclinations rather than the things of God.

This kind of spiritual elitism has always been a problem in the church. The great irony of Paul’s argument is what we discussed last week from chapter 2 - the message of the cross destroys spiritual elitism. We come together around the cross. Spiritual maturity is not measured by all the gifts one may have. It is unity and peace in the community. When divisions disrupt the community, we must recall what Paul says just before in 2:16 - “but we have the mind of Christ.”

Mature spirituality and growth in the Christian life is found in the cross - the self-sacrificing love of Christ. When we become weak in our flesh, that is when we gain strength spiritually. We are so used to trying to out-do someone else and compete spiritually. We think we are spiritual because of a committee we are on or the church we attend. We may think we are spiritually mature because of doctrines we believe or the teachers we hold in high esteem. We think we are spiritually mature because we are in Sunday school every week or occupy the same space on a pew. But for Paul, our spiritual maturity is based on whether or not we are a servant to all. How do we love each other even in our difficulties?

Saints grow in their maturity because they see themselves in the light of the cross, thereby, revealing who Jesus is rather than themselves. They live a life of sacrifice and love of each other. They are not jealous or quarrelsome. Our growth means that we are different from the rest of the world but more like Jesus. reminds us that maturity is growing into Christ - the measure of the full stature of Christ. He hoes on to say that we should not be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness and scheming. But instead, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

2. Saints allow the Spirit to produce. (vs. 5-6)

1 Corinthians 3:5–6 NRSV

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

Galatians 5:22–23 NRSV

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

As we spiritually mature, we produce fruit in our lives as evidence of that maturity. Saints will produce fruit in their lives that show others the work of God in their lives. That fruit that is produced is itself the work of God in a person’s life. It is not merely through human effort. Although, human effort is some part of it in the sense that we submit to God. The folly that existed in the Corinthian church is that the people were somehow the source of this fruit and production.

Paul is clear that God is the one who gives the growth and therefore, the source of the fruit that is produced - the Spirit working in the believer. The divisions that existed in Corinth can only be reconciled through the Spirit. Paul’s point is that people of the flesh live in division with each other and God.

There is a tension that exists here. The Christian is to be a person of love, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in . This love that comes from God brings us together not cause divisions. When the fruit of the Spirit grows in us, this produces a new life in Christ based on freedom in love. “The Spirit dwells within Christians and, when allowed, produces the very love which is commanded. It is not a mechanical action, mind you, but one in which the dynamic and direction are God’s, so that in reality God makes possible the very life he demands. The results of the Spirit’s presence fulfill : “ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” This love is the evidence of the Spirit working in our lives so that we can be a witness to Christ in the world.

3. Saints labor in the fields for harvest. (vs. 7-9)

1 Corinthians 3:7–9 NRSV

7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Matthew 9:37 NRSV

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;

As a Methodist pastor, I understand very well what Paul is trying to convey to the Corinthians. He has focused on growth and maturity in the life of faith that eventually will produce fruit. When that fruit comes, there is a harvest with all of us working together. I have gone to churches where I have benefited from the labor of those who came before me. There was growth in churches and in the spiritual lives of the people. I have also been in places where I wander if I was able to accomplish anything. It is only looking back where I see that what I did was breaking up the soil with the consistant message of the gospel that prepared the way for others. This is not easy work. It is frustrating at times because you are not seeing the benefit.

Sometimes that happens in our personal and the life of the church as well. We labor together breaking up soil, planting the seeds, watering the fields. It seems like nothing is happening. What we have to remember is that it is God who brings the growth. We are co-laborers. But God is the one who does the work. Where we do the Lord’s work and continue to preach the cross and produce the fruit of the Spirit, we are preparing the way for God to bring in the harvest.

When Jesus looks out on the crowds who gathered to hear the gospel, he says that there is a harvest that God has prepared to be brought in. We can look around us and see that here is an opportunity for a great harvest. The purpose of the church is to bring people to Jesus. When we loose sight of that primary goal, we are no longer the church. We must do the work of proclamation. We know that, but sometimes we just don’t know what that is. We have to ask ourselves, “What are the things/ministries that are needed that will lead people to Christ? What are the ways we engage our community so that we can be in a position to share Jesus? Do we look around us and see a ripe harvest ready to bring in? The gospel of Christ, the message of the cross is sufficient to change and transform the hearts and lives of all those who are seeking to know Christ. God has prepared a harvest. Are we willing to do the work necessary to bring it in?

Conclusion

As we close this morning, let us ask ourselves, are we living as the saint that God truly wants us to be? Have I been transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ? What does that mean for me? God has called us to be saints. There are times when we like the Corinthians try to follow our way. We look for the glitz and glam of our society and try to make the church look like that. We get lost in our own pursuits rather than the pursuit of God. We can even want to peddle a gospel that lacks power because we are afraid that if we speak the truth of Christ and him crucified it might turn people in our society away. It is when we seek a watered down, human centered gospel that the power is lost. It is a gospel that will save no one and keep people lost. We must listen to Paul and have the courage to speak the truth of Christ to a world that is in desperate need. The church is not here to be a social club. We are here to be the catalyst of transformation in our world. So go, saints of God! Take up the mantle! Go and get in the harvest! Tell the world of Jesus and his love with the witness of your lives! May we truly be the saints of God in our broken world.

Benediction

Go forth, saints of God! May the power and presence of the Holy Spirit set you aflame. May the powerful message of the cross of Christ set the world free from sin. May the love of God that sent Jesus into the world be alive in each of us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, go in peace. Amen.