Sermon Tone Analysis

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 4

INTRODUCTION: The Story of a Colorblind Child.

There are a lot of things to dislike about social media but one of the things I truly enjoy is how many videos of inspiration are circling around the internet that social media has the ability to connect us to.

I recently came across one such video.

It was a video capturing a young colorblind teenage, for the first time, receiving a pair of glasses designed to help him see color.

The amount of sheer joy that was on his face when he put the glasses on is hard to describe.

He walked around the room he was in taking in each and every single item and each every colorful detail on those items.

Because of his condition, he wasn't able to see the world as it really was.

At least not until he received special glasses.

With these new lenses he received the necessary help for him to see the world as it was intended to be seen.

And in some ways, when I hear that story, I think about us, the church.

You see, without the lens of the Gospel we are not able to see life as it was intended to be seen.

We aren't able to rightly understand the matters of life, relationships and in the case of this chapter, leadership, without that Gospel lens.

When we don't wear the Gospel on the eyes of our heart, we'll naturally gravitate towards unhealthy and even dangerous forms of leadership…versus leadership influenced and shaped by Jesus.

Of course, some of us may be saying “well, ok, cool that just means once I get saved I’m good to go.

I’ll be looking at the world through my Gospel lens and all will be well.

That brings me to another important part in this video.

There are several moments in the video where this young man takes these new glasses off and I'm sure you can guess what happens every single time he takes them off?

His perception of the world around him reverts back to his life before the glasses.

A colorless world again.

He usually puts the glasses back on.

The lens of the Gospel works in a similar way.

We can sometimes take them off and start looking at the world the way always looked at it.

We can start looking at relationships and leadership a certain way.

Believing, for example, that leadership is about ASSERTING power and force, it’s about doing whatever you have to do to get your way, its about fame and/or celebrity.

Whenever we aren’t looking at life through the lens of the Gospel, we will be compelled to define good leadership just like the rest of the world.

The Christians in Corinth seem to be making a similar mistake which is part of the reason divisions are forming and spiritual immaturity appears to be very prominent.

So, Paul, in the next 21 verses is setting out to help them understand what good Christian leadership actually looks like.

Let me tell you a couple reasons why this matters:

You will lead someone.

You may lead as a parent.

You may lead as a supervisor.

You may lead as expert in a field.

You may lead as a pastor.

Don’t know what you lead but I do know more than likely, at some point you will lead and it helps to know what good leadership looks like.

You will follow someone.

You will follow your church leadership.

You will follow a boss on a job.

You will appoint and elect leaders.

You will follow a team lead on a volunteer project.

So, it is equally important as a follower to know what you should expect in a good leader.

Paul lays this groundwork.

In fact, he sets the stage right out of the gate in verse 1.

Gospel Leadership Is About Faithful Service

Picture Paul saying in this verse, I know some of you are pumping us up and treating us like stars and that’s where you’re going wrong.

Rather, when you see us you should us regard us as SERVANTS and STEWARDS.

It’s not celebrity.

It’s not glitzy and glamorous.

It is SERVICE AND STEWARDSHIP.

Be careful not to see STEWARDS as the type of folks that show up on airplane fights and serve and attend to you.

One scholar said, the stewards here in chapter 4 are more or less like ESTATE MANAGERS.

In other words, the owner of some fortune entrusts the handling of that fortune to this very trust.

Paul is saying, as apostles, this is what God expects of us.

He expects us to conduct his business on His behalf as if He was doing it himself.

And what is His business?

The sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Proclaiming and reflecting the Kingdom of God.

This is what is meant to be a steward of the mysteries of God.

It’s for this reason that we hear in verse 2:

Notice what Paul says is required.

Faithfulness…not fame…not fortune…not celebrity…not power…FAITHFULNESS.

This is how one pastor puts it:

“A steward is just a servant.

He doesn’t run the household, the master does.

His only responsibility is to do what the master tells him.

So if the master tells him to invest money in something that completely tanks, the steward doesn’t take the blame.

On the other hand, if the master gives the steward an order that leads to great success, the steward doesn’t get the credit.

Success and failure are master words; faithfulness is the concern of stewards.”

It’s been often said that “God has not called us to success but to faithfulness” and if we we find success along the way so be it.

In fact, when you shift this paradigm, what becomes success is in fact FAITHFULNESS to God.

The steward is only striving to please one and that one is his/her master.

It’s for this reason that verses 3-5 make so much sense.

1 Corinthians 4:3 (ESV)

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court...

Paul makes a very interesting statement here.

“It is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court”

What does that mean?

It means your judgment of me is ultimately EXTREMELY INSIGNIFICANT.

Why?

Because a STEWARD’s performance, a SERVANT’s performance can only be measured by the MASTER!

It doesn’t matter how others ultimately perceive him because he is ultimately approved and disapproved only by one.

And how is that one measuring him?

He’s measuring him by whether or not He is FAITHFUL!

Success in Gospel Leadership is not NECESSARILY answered with how many people you’re leading, how much money you generated, or how valuable of a commodity you are now or your ministry is now.

Kingdom success is measures by one question ARE YOU FAITHFUL to the assignment that your master has given you!?

Application: As we sit here this morning, many of you are held captive in your life by a number of different masters.

Your employer and coworkers and their impression of you holds you captive - and so you work harder and longer to try and prove everyone wrong.

Some of you spend hours scrolling screens and sharing carefully constructed images of yourself - because you are held captive by the fear of what this fake world would think of you if they saw and knew the real you

Some of you are held captive by your family, your friends, or your boyfriend, or girlfriend - so you constantly allow yourself to bend to their pressure and twist who you are into knots in order to satisfy their endless expectations of you.

Even as a church planter, there’s metrics out there and scorecards.

How many members does your church have; how much money does your church receive

Here’s what I’m saying to you…I’m saying if you’re not careful you’ll allow yourself to be a STEWARD to so many that you’ll live your entire life in service to all of these voices when ultimately ONLY one voice and one approval ultimately matters!

His!

ARE YOU FAITHFUL to His Kingdom work for your LIFE?

Now this is where it could go REALLY off the rails because, for many people, what I just said gives you an opportunity to shrink your circle of counsel and start looking only to yourself as the barometer of truth for how well they are living life and as long as they can say, “I’m happy.

I feel good.”,

they say to themselves, “I’m being FAITHFUL”

2Pac used to have a song where he says “Only God Can Judge Me…So all you other [expletives] get out of my business”.

Now, most of y’all wouldn’t use the expletive (some of y’all would :)), but you will still kind of have this incomplete thought…which oftentimes doesn’t turn upward towards God but rather turns inward on us and ultimately becomes

“ME JUDGING ME.”