Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Have you ever watched someone do something and you just thought they should have known better?
Didn’t you know that was going to happen?
Parents with teenagers know what I’m talking about.
Actually, anyone who’s been a teenager knows what I’m talking about.
I get the sense from our passage today that Paul was a bit frustrated with having to repeat himself to the church at Corinth.
He spent several years with them and taught them all about Jesus and how to follow Him.
Yet, Paul finds himself going back to some of the basics with them.
I’ve pulled today’s sermon title from verse 16 of 1 Corinthians 3:
I’ve divided chapter 3 up into 4 different “Don’t You Know?” statements.
The first comes from the first 4 verses. of chapter 3...
Don’t You Know
1.
How to mature in Christ?
This entire chapter is for the believers in Christ.
Specifically for the believer in Corinth, but also for believers in the church today.
In Corinth, this church had been taught by Paul, led to Christ and then others taught about Jesus and they still were not maturing in their walk.
In verse 1, he calls them out for not living by the Spirit.
If we are not living by the Spirit, we will not grow in maturity.
They were not living by the Spirit and as a result, they were not growing in maturity.
He labels them as infants in Christ.
He started them with milk - with the basics about the Gospel and how to live, hoping to wean them and get them on solids, but they did not mature.
They were still stuck in gratifying their worldly, fleshly or selfish needs.
Here is what they did:
Jealousy and quarreling are the signs of an immature church.
Jealousy and quarreling cause disunity.
A couple of weeks ago, when we covered the latter part of chapter 1, we talked about unity.
Without unity in the church around the Gospel of Jesus, we will never make an impact in the community around us.
If we want to see people come to Jesus, we have to be one in Jesus.
Unified in love and in the message of the Gospel.
Division in the church is toxic, immature and will require baby food and spiritual diapers.
I don’t think that is the case at Crossroads, but let these verses be a warning.
Following people will get us into trouble.
Let’s commit to making Christ the one we follow.
A reason for the Corinthian church’s immaturity was there willingness to make following people more important than following Jesus.
Let this never be so at Crossroads!
Don’t You Know
1.
How to mature in Christ?
2. How the church is served (led)?
Jesus modelled a completely new type of leadership.
He was a servant leader.
This meant that while he was leading, he was also serving those he led.
This is the posture of Paul and the others as they led.
Unfortunately, the church at Corinth place an improper amount of both responsibility and credit onto the disciples.
Paul sets them straight:
The word used for servants is the word we use for deacons.
The position of deacons was created to take care of the physical needs of the church so that the apostles could devote themselves to teaching and prayer.
Paul, although an apostle, wants them to understand that they are just servants.
Servants who serve according to the tasks that have been given.
These tasks were handed down by the Lord.
The important part of all of this is not the tasks, it’s not the servants as the Corinthians made it, it is the Lord who assigns.
He is the most important.
We are all just merely servants.
Paul is saying stop elevating us beyond our position.
He goes on to say:
I just love this analogy.
I planted a garden this year.
I did water it a couple of times, but the last few weeks I’ve ignored it.
I went out there on Friday and found a horde of cucumbers.
If it were up to me and my efforts in the garden, the plants would have died long ago.
Instead there is this bounty of cucumbers that God has been making grow.
It is the same in the church.
I hear of growth in some of you from time to time.
Not to say there isn’t growth in all of you, I only hear some of it.
You might tell me that it’s because I said something in a sermon or in another conversation, but that’s not it.
What I say is just a seed or a little bit of water.
The growth comes when the Spirit does His work in you.
I can’t do that.
This verse helps me a lot.
It helps me to see my place in all of this.
Paul was trying to get the church to see his role - as a seed planter or a waterer, but not only that - God’s role in making things grow.
Give God the credit for your growth.
Not a person - God deserves that credit.
I love this.
My credit, my reward…your credit, your reward is not based on the growth, it is based on your planting and watering.
That’s our labor.
We together plant the seeds of the Gospel in those we interact with.
Where the seeds are planted, we also water together.
This happens with encouraging words, loving acts, graciousness, speaking the truth of God’s Word and however else the Spirit leads.
We may never see the results of what grows, but that part is up to the Lord.
All of us together are co-workers.
You, the church is God’s field and building.
There is not one of us that is above or better than any other.
We are all His servants.
When we make the church about following Him and not a person, we put ourselves in a position for the growth that God gives to His people.
Don’t You Know
1.
How to mature in Christ?
2. How the church is served (led)?
3. How the church is built?
Paul transitions from using a garden or field as the metaphor to a building.
He makes clear that church must be built well on a foundation of Jesus.
The foundation is the Gospel of Jesus.
Paul preached this every where he went.
It didn’t matter to him that the church was then taught and guided by someone else as they put different parts of the church in place.
It did matter to him who the foundation was.
Any church that does not have Jesus as the foundation is not God’s church.
If anyone every tries to make the foundation at Crossroads anything but Jesus, speak up.
If they won’t listen, run and find a church that has Jesus as the foundation.
As we work together to build Crossroads as a church that follows Jesus, there will be some things that will turn out to be hay or straw and other things that are gold, silver and costly stones.
When the day of judgement comes, we’ll know what is what.
We’ll see the quality of the work.
As we all work to build God’s church, we first build on a good foundation of Jesus.
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