1 cor. 3.1-8
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Recap
Good Morning everyone
Our Title for this morning Sermon is The Church is not the Teacher.
I know that it has been a while since we have been in First Corinthians, so let us go over the recap to jog our memory.
We learned from Chapter two from the Apostle Paul is that we do not need fancy words. We, as Believers, get wrapped up in the learning and understanding of the Theological words. You can understand the meaning of the word. Still, if you do not understand and believe the principle of God's word, then all the Theological journals, dictionaries, and commentaries do not matter at all. I might not pronounce most of the problematic words in the Bible, but I understand the concept and what our Heavenly Father is trying to convey to his children and the audience.
Second, we learned that God, our Creator has no favorites. We are all his children that that follow him and were selected before the foundation of the Earth. Biblical teachers are double accountable, but this does not make us unique, and no one is the class pet. You are not particular no matter who you are in this world. And your stuff still stinks no matter how much perfume or AX you have placed on your stink of sin. We are all sinful and require the process of Justification to pay for our sins. There is no get-out free jail card for our sins. Every sin must be paid, and either we pay it or have the blood of Jesus pay for it. We learned this in detail on Easter Sunday.
Next, we learned that we are weak without our Heavenly Father. Who Remembers the body type of the Apostle Paul? Was he a skinny bony, somewhat soft guy, or did he have massive muscles? Just ask my wife when we got married, I was 140 pounds soaking wet with a dumbbell in my pocket.
I am trying to remind us that no matter if you are physically weak or bench press a semi-truck, we are all weak Spiritually. We are helpless because, without our Heavenly Father, we are nothing. We are vulnerable because the effects of sins in the garden have a trickled-down impact on everything to physical illness, and all the bad things in this world.
The following tidbit we learned was that we could not rest in this world and Spiritual Wisdom. Just because we are saved does not mean that we Veg for the next 20 years. If you still have breath in your lungs with or without an oxygen tank, then we must continue to spread the Gospel to everyone we interact with. Additionally, we must keep spending time with our Heavenly Father. We cannot grow stagnant in our faith because it is worse than a can of coke left over from the night before? Flat and tastes just gross. WE cannot just go through the motions praying that church is over for the big game or some food. We are here to worship our Heavenly Father and not just punch our attendance card as we did in primary school.
This is a two-sided relationship. We must continue reading our Bible, spending time in prayer, and spending time with fellow Believers. I combined these because they are closely tied together and after reviewing this after preaching it, they are connected. If we do not have a relationship in the world, we cannot tell anyone about him. Our Heavenly Father knows everything about us, including how many hairs on the head we have and how many times we will crack our knuckles. He is all-knowing from the very beginning of it all.
Now that we have done the recap of the previous chapter let us dive into what the Apostle Paul is telling the church.
1 Cor. 3.1-2
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,
The Apostle Paul is laying it out on the line with the first verse of the chapter by stating that the Followers of Christ in Corinth are not mature Christians and cannot address them. He must treat them like a newborn baby that relies on Mother's milk to provide what they need to survive spiritually. Now he is not talking about Mother's milk. I know we drive down into the Historical, Literal, and Grammatical method of Hermeneutics. We go down into what is being said and what our Heavenly Father is saying through the human Author. We must use some sense that the Apostle Paul is not handing out baby bottles to the new Christians. They did not have baby bottles or breast pumps.
When you have a new follower in the family of being a Believer, you do not just jump into the complex doctrine of Salvation or If Babies will go to Heaven or hell. Great topic to study but extraordinarily difficult, and no one agrees on anything because we do not know. We must start slowing because when we were children. Yes, I know it has been a while for most of us. Our parents did not just give us a steak and some spuds, but we started with Rice cereal, and then we worked up to nasty pumpkin squash pea baby food.
It is our job to take What we learn in our walk with God, and in those seats, we can compress and tell others? Christianity for dummies and out into the world.
The Apostle Paul mentions that the reference is not literal but means that we must start with the basics of doctrine for new followers. Being a follower of Christ is not a sprint but a marathon in a relationship with our Creator. You can study the word of God every day for 18 hours a day and still not know the answers to everything. Look at some of the great theologians of our time that still do not know all the answers. Even Pastor Rich will constantly admit, hey, I do not know but let me study it and get back to you.
It is a lifelong journey. We will be doing it until we no longer have breath in our lungs, and I am glad of this. Our God has instilled this feeling of learning his word and having a relationship with him. A feeling that cannot be tamed by anything but spending time in His word, listening to sermons, and spending time in prayer.
Does anyone remember when we studied the book Seeking Allah Finding Jesus. The Author was a very devote Muslim that found out the truth and became a Believer in Christ.
In the beginning, he goes into details of how he spent hours studying the religious books, prayer, and attending mosque. There was such devotion in the study, and the religious leaders taught this. I am not saying that we switch to a religion that is a copycat of ours to simplify it but take a lesson. We must put the same effort we do in our Secular Jobs and our hobbies in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
We are not to rely on what the Person behind the pulpit says but to go digging into what they say. Suppose we say something wrong, then it is your job to correct us. Yes, I know this is an ego killer, but it is about him and not myself or anyone else that is preaching. We are to do everything to honor and glorify him.
If we rely on what is fed from this pulpit, then we are going to die spiritually. We cannot rely solely on what we get on Sunday morning or Wednesday night. What would happen if I only fed my daughter on Sunday and Wednesday? She would be starving and will not be thriving, just like those images of starving children in third-world countries where they are eating mud pancakes.
This is what you are doing to yourselves if you are not in his word. It is not my job, pastor rich or Mr. Chuck's job, to feed you a four-course meal and provide you the milk to get you started. To get you to think and develop as an infant, turn to a baby, a continually active little girl. You must dig deeper into the word. I do not care if you listen to other sermons or Christian books because when I am playing with kids toys in my other job, I am doing the same thing But, it is our job to ensure that you know what you are being taught is the right thing being said and if not then act on it. You are fed milk instead of water down with a bit of milk in it; man, that sounds like it would taste horrible.
Let us move onto the following few verses.
1 Cor. 3.3-4
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?
Here comes another shot to the bow. We are still of the flesh. Of the Flesh??? This is weird wording in verse, but when you dig deep into the language of the text, it states that we are of the world. We live in a world where it is all about us and not others or our Heavenly Father. We do not live in a plastic bubble, and everything that happens in the sinful world we are in affects us. We have sin and Temptation Everywhere we look. We must deal with these issues that we are having. Our Heavenly Father does not want us to be alone but in a relationship with him.
We are to be different from the world, but apparently, the church in Corinth was having fits of Jealousy and something called Strife. Now I know I make up some of my own words, but this is an actual word and means strong bitter, angry disagreement. They were behaving like animals going at each other, probably so close there is spit flying from their mouths arguing about who they are following in their Christian walk.
We see this every day in our walk with other Christians of other denominations. NO, I am Methodist, I am Baptist, I am assembly of God. They all follow God with some differences to them. Now here is a factoid for everyone there are over 200 different denominations of Christianity in North America. WE do not need a measuring stick competition in who we are following. I have seen it firsthand at work, where I have had people shame me for not Baptizing Harper even when I tell her it is not a requirement of Salvation but a public confirmation or statement of faith. A commitment to God. My Pumpkin knows there is a God and Jesus, but she is too young to understand all that goes with it.
I can imagine this group shouting, and I follow Paul. He is fantastic and incredible. Well, I follow Apollos?
Wait, who is Apollos, and why is a group of people following him and putting up a fight against the other group.
Apollos was an early first-century church leader and is introduced in.
Acts. 18.24
Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.
Apollos was a biblical teaching that learned from the Baptist and studied the Old Testament in detail, just like Hellenized group of People. Yes, I know I said Hellenized, but we are not referring to somewhere toasty, but some were either gentile or Greek. There were not many Gentiles during this time, but Apollos stood out because he knew what was told in the Scripture. However, we see in
Acts 18.26-19.1 (Read these verses)
He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples.
that he had some issues understanding the fundamental beliefs of being a Christ Follower. Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and set him straight so that he was not spreading false teaching. Apollos did not know the complete evens of Jesus' death and the passion week. Additionally, we learn that he was having some issues with spiritual and moral standards.
What is the lesson that we see here?
Even some of the great church founders had some things wrong. They were not perfect. Guess what no one is. Not me or pastor rich. We all are fallible and get things wrong. The only person that is perfect ever is the guy that died on the Cross. We learned in close detail about the torture that he endured on Easter. God only son Jesus and part of the triune godhead. Even John MacArthur has changed his mind on things and his stance.
Now I know that we went on a massive hippo-sized mickey mouse rabbit trail, but we must understand the context of the mentioned person.
The Apostle Paul is trying to tell the church that they are fighting over who they are following in their Spiritual walk, but they are just human. If we stab them, they will bleed and die. They cannot heal themselves, and they will not rise from the dead in three days unless God has something to do with it. Who Remembers the James Town Cult in South America where we get the phrase do not drink the Kool-Aid. Everyone worshiped the leader and followed him blindly but did not have a relationship with their Heavenly Father. They did not understand that he was just a human and not God himself. He did not create the sky and the stars or even the dirt on the ground. He was a crazy guy who had bits of anger, rage and was not a good person.
Paul and Apollos are just the mouthpieces to proclaim the Gospel. They sin; they have murdered and committed transgressions towards others. The Apostle Paul killed Christians as a sport before he was saved, but he also got mad, frustrated, and angry, and that is just as bad as stabbing someone or killing them. Biblical teachers are human too and have their struggles. We must be humbled sometimes and get on our knees and pray and worship our Heavenly Father. We do not have all the answers. This is hard to write because men are programmed to be Mr. Fix it. We are told to make it work somehow. I am the go-to person at work, and it pains me to ask for help or say, hey, I do not know. Help! Apollos and the Apostle Paul were the same. They were not superheroes or superhuman, and we are not either. I am not perfect, and I have faults. Too many to name.
The church was fighting over guys who were having the same struggles and challenges they were having. The big difference is that they were and, just like Biblical Teachers, are double accountable. I know the math does not add up, but we are. Here are some statistics for you. Thirty-five percent of Pastors suffer from depression, 40 percent of Pastors have adultery relationships with someone.
1 Cor. 3.5-8
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.
Now the Apostle Paul is continuing his thought and stating that they are just servants. Now Servants is not extraordinarily strong enough. We are slaves, Diakonos. WE deserve nothing that we are given. We live in a world where everything is giving me, give me. Right now, Employers have a significant employment crisis where they cannot get bodies to work. No one wants to work because, hey, you can be on unemployment. But back then, you had to work for everything, and we have a master that paid the ultimate price with his son. We do not serve the payment of our sins through Jesus on the Cross. We deserve death, but through this death and the relationship, we can become more like him. Here is your two-dollar word - It is called Sanctification. The process of becoming without any blemish and becoming like his chosen child.
We all have a job in this world that our Heavenly Father has given us. Some of us were cops, pet store shop keepers or managers, some sliced lunch meat but one thing that has taught us about this pandemic showed us that we all have important jobs. WE learned that the term of Essential worker. Police, fire, medical, and even the bagger at the grocery store were essential. Without all of us working together, then our world does not run. We all have another job that is not related to our secular jobs. We have a position of spreading the Gospel to everyone we interact with. I wish I knew where God wanted me to do for a secular job, but I know that he wants me to teach and preach his word to others. We are to tell everyone about God. The topic of religion is not something warm and fuzzy for people. Who enjoys hearing that they are sinful and deserve death? It is not exactly a statement that will fill the offering plate or have you gain more friends.
In verse six, the Apostle Paul uses a plant where he started the church, Apollos gave it nurture, but God gave the required growth.
Here is an example for everyone, and I want you to shout out if you know it.
What are three things needed for fire?
oxygen
heat
fuel
You take one of those away; then you do not have a fire. They work together to create this magical thing that can destroy houses and create new growth in an overgrown forest.
Apollos, Paul, and God are all together planting this church. Now God does not need the help of others and can do anything by himself, but he provides the growth and the plan to grow the church and have sinners become followers of him.
We are all pieces of a giant puzzle that God has put together. I encourage you to think about your life and the events that happen—the what-ifs and the road that happened. For instance, when I explain to Harper why daddy hurts, I present to her, I had a bad accident, but that accident prevented me from going into the military, which stopped me from leaving fort Myers. I met my beautiful wife online, but she lived in Florida. I grew closer to God because of the love I saw from her and her family. This church and biological family showed me this love. That one event changed the course of things and allowed me to become a husband to a wonderful woman and a beautiful little girl.
We do not know why things happen, but there are steps to this thing called life. The Apostle Paul could not plant the church, water it, and provide growth all by himself. It is more significant than him and what we do is more important than what we are doing. I look back at the people I have helped in a short time, and when I get a success story about how they are doing, I am happy to know that I was able to help them by exposing them to God. I was a piece in the puzzle to get them better spiritually and safe in this world. It was not Brian that did it, but I was the vehicle. The mode for God to use me to help others.
Our Heavenly Father does everything. We are the muscle, the labor. I joke at work when I am in pain that I am just the muscle because I do the truck, kitchen, and I am the human ladder. The critical thing is that I did not make myself tall, but God in his design made me tall. Each Person in the puzzle is essential and vital, just like when you are trying to put together something for IKEA or a home improvement project. If you do not read the instructions or have the right piece in the right spot, you have something that will not work or get sprayed with a whole bunch of water.
So, what happens if you do not follow directions when building something or going somewhere?
You end up lost, or something is broken. WE are the steps, the pieces, and we must understand this.
We know all about the riches in Heaven. You see the dump truck that we lay at God's feet. We will be rewarded in Heaven for the good deeds we do on this earth. Everything we do we have to account for. IT is a check and a balance, just like accounting. I know my wife is laughing because I am horrible at accounting, but I remember that. You take something from the left. You must give it to the right. Our transgressions are the same way in this world. Jesus paid the Debt of our sins and transgressions. I do not know about you, but I want to have a whole caravan of jewels. We, as believers, all have a job to tell every soul we see about the Creator that saved us from dying. We all have wages or rewards, but I want to hear, well done, Brian, well done. NO single person is in the church, and no single person can handle it all. For example, one person cannot successfully preach the Sunday school sermon, sing the songs, run the sound room and the stream. Then make sure the coffee is set up, the place Is cleaned, and then make sure all the bills are paid, and the ministries we support have the funds they need to do the work of God. Yes, I know Pastor Rich does a lot, but it is not a one-person band because what happens when something happens to one of the people that help run the ministry. We must work together for Team God and Team Friendship.
How many people have seen churches that have died once the pastor has gone to Heaven or something has happened? The Pastor has to step down or was found doing something immoral or illegal. No backup plan, no other helpers, or workers. As followers of Christ, we are to get our hands dirty, greasy, and sometimes a little slimy in this world for our heavenly father.
So, what takeaways do we have?
Take- A-Ways
We are just Slaves for God. We are nothing special, and we are to serve our Heavenly Father. We are not God. We are just the hands and the mouthpiece to spread the word of God. We are all a part of a team that spread the Gospel and not just one person. One Person plants the seed, one nurtures it, and God allows it to grow.
We cannot fight among ourselves over who is our Biblical teacher or what church we go to. If someone says, hey, I go to such church. Good for you. We might disagree with their doctrine, and it might not be correct, but we must teach them with respect and honesty.
WE follow God and not man. WE follow what Scripture says. If that person on the pulpit is wrong, then it is your duty and job to say something.
++You are a piece of the puzzle. We all work together to do what God has asked us to do. Spread the Gospel to everyone we see and interact with.
++You are a Spiritual Soldier. You might not see that Person get saved or Baptized, but there is a reason you are in that person's life. God has a reason for everything, and we do not have the battle map, but we are the soldiers in the trenches.
Lets Pray
