How to Have a Healthy Church pt 4

Prayer concerns

How have you seen God work this week?

What gospel conversations were you able to have?

Prayer

Introduction: How to have a healthy church. A healthy church has unity by knowing what is important and what is unimportant. A healthy church obtains the wisdom of God and not the wisdom of man. A healthy church obtains the wisdom of God through the Spirit. This seemed to be new idea to the church as Paul explains it more fully in the beginning of chapter 3. The Corinthian church was not looking at culture, ideas, and things through the lenses of the wisdom of God. They were not looking at things with a spiritual focus. Paul is going to make this abundantly clear by revisiting an idea that he has already mentioned.

Reading of the scripture: For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, 3 because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strife, among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? 4 For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not acting like mere humans? [1]

Prayer

How to have a healthy church?

A healthy church has mature and immature believers in it.

Spoken to Spiritually

What does it mean to be able to speak to someone spiritually? This word hear “spiritually” has the idea of “from the spirit” or “spiritually conducted”. Have you ever had a pastor tell you something you did not want to hear? I tread lightly with that question because I’m fully aware that that pastor could be me. We are quick to disagree and discount something because it offends or hurts us. Someone that can be spoken to spiritually is able to accept that offense and hurt knowing that the other person is simply trying to follow God. Perhaps it is not the pastor or fellow Christian that is offending you. Maybe, it is the Spirit of God convicting you. They could be wrong, but you know when you can be spoken to spiritually when you can truth that is uncomfortable and apply that to your life. Are you able to do that? Are you one of those people that like to have their ears tickled?

Not able to be spoken to as spiritual people

There are certain conversations that certain Christian’s are simply not ready to have yet. There are difficult circumstances, situations, and even doctrines that if you were to present to a new believer it would not be the least bit beneficial and perhaps even harmful. For example, you probably don’t want to put a new Christian in a position of leadership that requires teaching. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t mean they are less than it just means they aren’t ready yet, and that is okay.

Sanctified

It would seem, that the majority of Paul’s audience here were believers. Majority of the believers may have been week in the faith and immature but they were justified by the blood of Christ. This solid food is the hard word that comes after being justified. A continually work and even if I could go a step further a continually battle from your soul to eradicate sin. To become more holy.

Babies

This word for baby has the idea of immature or simple-minded. As you observe people growing up you notice, hopefully, that there are times when they are ready. Perhaps the government puts an age on when people are ready for certain responsibilities but for a while at least you are the one that makes the decision. Are they ready to date? Are they ready for a job? Are they ready to drive by themselves? These are things that as people transition from immaturity to maturity they experience. Let me paint the rough timeline that Paul was working with here. He arrives in Corinth around 50-51 AD. He pens this letter around 53-54 AD. There is somewhere between a 2-4 year span of time between the two. And it would seem that there was an expectation from Paul that they would have matured more quickly in that 2-4 year span. Now, let me paint a picture that is more modern. We’ve got people that sit in Sunday school classes for 10,15 maybe even 20 years. Ideally, those classes should be multiplying as believers grow into maturity.

Holy

The word holy means to be set apart. Now Paul doesn’t specifically say the mature Christian was holy, but he did say that the immature was worldly and the opposite of that is, of course holy. When people see your life, do they know you are a Christian? Do they see you conversing differently? Do they see you prioritize correctly? Or do they see the same thing that is in everyone else? God created us for something better than to just “fit in”. He created to be his child and to please him. We do that by becoming more and more holy in our everyday life.

Worldly

The idea of being worldly in the Greek is to focus on material things. Some translations use the word “flesh” instead. This is in stark contrast to follow the Spirit. When one chooses to follow the “flesh” or to follow something other than the Spirit because it is easier or makes more sense. When Paul speaks of the idea of worldly that is what he is trying to communicate. The idea of following something other than the Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit leads us to do things that make us uncomfortable, that we don’t like, that are not fun. Given the choice to follow the Spirit or something else what will you choose? The idea of following the Spirit is not just the gut feeling. Could the Spirit use that? Of course he could. But doing what is right, noble, and holy is following the Spirit. So if you are asking the question is the Spirit leading me to tell the truth, yes he is. Is the Spirit leading me to help that person? Yes he is. Is the Spirit leading me to share the gospel message with that person? Yes he is. Let’s not over complicate something that was never meant to be complicated.

Contentment

Same as with holy this isn’t mentioned but can easily be implied because the from envy. Let me be clear, I don’t think we should ever have contentment with our developing Relationship with Christ. However, in our professional status, social life, children, all of these things will never feel the void that we all have. The only thing that will feel that void is the gospel message. We have a certain amount of contentment when we have the gospel message and understand it correctly. Because all of a sudden all of those other things are not important anymore. At the end of the day you can prop your feet up and say I have a relationship with God that will net me more than anything else that this world has to offer.

Envy

One of the things that marks an immature Christian is that they are envious or jealous. What are they jealous of exactly? Well this one was following Paul and this one was following Apollos. Can’t you just see Paul’s follower’s going, hey look, my dude is writing letters to us. What is Apollos doing? Apollos’ followers are over here saying well Apollos is such a dynamic teacher and bold. There is this contact comparison between these two guys and this is the second time Paul himself has brought it up. Don’t we do the same thing though? Look at what this church or that church is doing. Well this church has Upward, this one has a robust men’s ministry, this one has small groups, this one has a live band…etc. Can I just say how sinful “church shopping” is? Have we seriously reduced the church to a fast food restaurant to where we will go for what feels good in the moment?

Unity

A trait of mature Christian’s is the ability to have unity with one another. Unity isn’t mentioned exactly, but again the opposite of it is.

Strife

This particular word for strife can also be translate quarrel. The idea of bickering or back biting. It is interesting to them that envy and strife are mentioned so close together. Almost as if the two naturally go hand in hand. Ah, you are upset something. If you aren’t extremely careful, the envy, problems, that you are experiencing will cause strife and disunity. Do you really want to be the person that is causing strife and disunity in the local body? Are you okay being used by satan in that way?

Follows People

The particular people that the Corinthian church was following was Paul and Apollos. To be fair, there wasn’t anything wrong with Paul or Apollos outside of the fact that they were human just like everyone else. They are only able to lead people as much as they were willing to be led by God. People were proud of the fact they were following one of these two folks. What Paul was trying to convey is that it doesn’t matter if they follow Paul, Apollos, or anyone else. What matters is that they are following Jesus. To make a modern day equivalent, there is this vastly unhealthy practice of following pastors when they change church’s. When that occurs it begs the question are we following people or are we following Jesus? Is Jesus leading you to another church or is pastor so and so leading you?

Follows Jesus

The mature Christian follows Jesus. So where is Jesus leading exactly? 16 The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. 18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So how are you doing following Jesus to all nations evangelizing? How are you doing following Jesus in Surry County with evangelism? How are you doing following Jesus at the Westfield Grill with evangelism? What about Wal-mart? A follower of Jesus that never boasts about Jesus is no follower. Mature christian’s follow Jesus.

A healthy church has both immature and mature Christians. The key is developing immature believers into maturity. If we want our church to be healthy we have got to see an influx in immature believers and then the mature believers discipling those. Those of you that are mature believers are you finding someone that is immature? Immature believers are you finding someone that is mature?

Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Mt 28:16–20). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

[1] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (1 Co 3:1–4). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Mature Christian

Spoken to spiritually

Sanctified

Holy

Content

Unity

Follows Jesus

Immature Christian

Not able to be spoken to spiritually

Babies

Worldly

Envy

Strife

Follows People