God Gives the Growth
Notes
Transcript
God Gives the Growth
1 Corinthians 3:1–9(ESV)
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.
And even now you are not yet ready, 3 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?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
Introduction
Worldliness is much deeper than bad habits; it is an orientation, a way of thinking and believing. It is buying the world’s philosophies, buying human wisdom.
It is looking to the world—to human leaders, to influential and popular people, to neighbors, associates, and fellow students—for our standards, attitudes, and meaning.
Worldliness is accepting the world’s definitions, the world’s measuring sticks, and the world’s goals.[1]
Our ultimate triumph over the world and the flesh is certain, but our continued struggle with them in this life is also certain.
We will win the ultimate battle but can lose a lot of skirmishes along the way.
1. The Corinthians fell into one serious sin after another. Almost all of this epistle involves identifying and correcting those sins.
2. Sins are always interrelated. The sin of division was closely related to numerous other sins. There is no such thing as an isolated sin. One sin leads to another, and the second reinforces the first.
Every sin is a combination of sins, and a sinning believer cannot confine the evil to one dimension.
From 1:18 through 2:16, Paul points out that.
a. The Corinthians were divided because of worldliness and their continued love for human wisdom. In 3:1–9,
b. They also were divided because of the flesh, because of their continued yielding to the evil in their humanness.
He shows the cause, the symptoms, and the cure.[2]
Since the Corinthians claim allegiance to various human leaders, they may claim grand spiritual experiences, but their behavior proves they have not grasped God’s wisdom.
3. God’s ways appear to be weak and foolish in the world’s eyes, and we might well be tempted to reject them and to boast in ourselves instead, to trust in our own wisdom and strength.
And yet, Paul has shown it is precisely these weak and apparently foolish things by which God works mightily so that our pride might be shattered and His wisdom exalted.
And then last time, in the remainder of chapter 2, Paul explained to us how all of that works. The apparent foolishness and weakness of the Gospel message and the Gospel ministers who proclaim that message notwithstanding, God still saves sinners by it. And how come? How does that work? Well,
4. God’s work is accomplished because this weak, foolish message is the revelation of God Himself recorded in the Scriptures by inspiration and received by us through illumination by the Spirit of God.
That is the second half of chapter 2. And now this time as we begin chapter 3, Paul circles back to deal with the problem of division more directly.
Thus far it’s been a rather oblique approach to the problem. Now he comes at it much more directly.
The Diagnosis
The Cause of Division: Childishness
He did not try to diminish the seriousness of their sins, but he did try to diminish or prevent any discouragement that his rebuke might otherwise have caused.
1 Corinthians 3:1 (ESV)
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
· He stood with them as a brother, not over them as a judge.
· He could not speak to the Corinthian believers as spiritual men.
They had come through the door of faith but had gone no farther.
Most of them had received Jesus Christ years earlier but were acting as if they had just been born again. They were still babes in Christ.
When we meet a child – you know, you meet a child who is mature beyond their years, we’re generally impressed by that and we praise them for it.
But when you meet an adult who is acting like a baby, we tend to pity them at best.
The Corinthians ought to have made progress by now but they are still babies in Christ.
And here we are right along with the Corinthians, for a visit of our own with Dr. Paul.
I wonder what the diagnosis will be in your case.
As he examines your spiritual condition, will he find someone who ought to be mature and making progress in godliness but who is,
in fact, fleshly and infantile and immature?
Will God look at your life as a Christian and write in the case notes next to your name, “Failure to thrive.”
A stunted Christian who refuses to grow up is a pitiful thing.
Paul’s diagnosis; it’s a striking, challenging diagnosis, isn’t it?
The Underlying Causes
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?
“Acting in a Human Way”
· It is to act entirely as though Christ were not Lord and His Spirit had not made you a new creature at all.
It is to let the dog-eat-dog rules of merely human culture dictate our behavior toward one another, even in the church of Jesus Christ.
· Division can only occur where there is selfishness
‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human?”
· The Corinthians were not unintelligent. Their problem was not low IQ or lack of teaching.
They were not ignorant of the faith because they were dumb but because they were fleshly.
in other words
· The cause of jealousy and strife was not mental but spiritual. Because they refused to give up their worldly ways and their carnal desires, they became what James calls forgetful hearers (James 1:25).
A person who does not use information will lose it; and spiritual truth is no exception.
James 1:25 (ESV)
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
· In their pride, they were fighting over which group was best.
The Paul party looks down on the Apollos party, and so on.
And they’re squabbling over it and taking offense and holding grudges and muttering as they pass one another and throwing each other dirty looks.
Fleshly, immature people cooperate only with those leaders and fellow believers with whom they happen to agree or who personally appeal to them or will flatter them.
Factions cannot help resulting where there is jealousy and strife or any other form of carnality.
When a congregation develops loyalties around individuals, it is a sure symptom of spiritual immaturity and trouble.
It was sinful for factions to develop around Paul and Apollos, and it is sinful for divisive factions to develop around any leader in the church today.
The Antidote
We’re No Longer Our Own
an infant, a child , sees no world but their own, knows no needs but their own
We are no longer our own!
We have been bought at a price, and we belong to the Lord Jesus, into union with whom we have been placed by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us.
And that means we no longer have any right – we never had any right, but now even less so do we have a right to pride or jealousy.
We have no right to self-righteous anger.
“Oh, but you’ll never believe what he did!
I have every right to be angry! i have every right to fly off the handle. They annoyed me like you’ll never believe! They did this or they didn’t do that.” Now, what is that?
That’s me thinking like a self-righteous, self-righteous, avoiding resonsibilty, acting childish myself even as i call it out is someone else isn’t it?
I’m justifying myself. I’m telling myself I have every right to lose my temper and fly off the handle.
I’m the aggrieved party after all.
“They’re the ones who have the problem!”
And you flap your hands like that and your face goes red. “They’re the ones with the problem,” you say.
And Paul would say,
“Can you see yourself right now? You are still acting in a merely human way. You’re acting according to man.
You’re acting as if you belonged to you as if you were in charge.
As if you have the right to set the terms by which everyone else around you should treat you, respond to you relate to you and deal with you.
You are in Christ now.
You are under new management. You are His! You are not your own!
He has loved you and bled and died for you and borne your sin and guilt and reconciled you to God by the cross so that you have been adopted into the family of God and the household of faith.
You are His now and you are to live for Him.
And while you continue to let yourself sit on the throne in your heart, well then, no wonder you make no progress,”
Paul is saying to the Corinthians. “No wonder your Christian life is so stunted and immature. No wonder you fail to thrive!
This divisive, schismatic spirit driven by jealousy and pride, played out in strife and friction and fighting, all of that means you’re acting like babies when you ought to have grown up by now.”
The diagnosis – a failure to thrive spiritually. Spiritual immaturity.
The underlying causes – divisions and jealousy and pride; acting according to man as though we still lived under the old management of sin and self when in fact we’ve come to live under new management, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
In verses 1 to 3, look there with me. Verses 1 to 3 – he makes his diagnosis. Like babies at the clinic, the Corinthians were “failing to thrive.” There was spiritual immaturity.
Then, in verses 3 and 4, he identifies the underlying causes of that dreadful, spiritual failure to thrive.
And then finally, in verses 5 to 9 and in the rest of the chapter, he begins his treatment plan. So there’s the outline if that’s of help to you. In verses 1 to 3, the diagnosis. Verses 3 and 4, the underlying causes. Verses 5 to 9, are the beginnings of the treatment plan.
Summarize what we have said….
And even now, as he begins to write to them in this letter, this is still their ongoing problem. They are still of the flesh, still immature. To be sure, he says, “you have been converted.”
They are in Christ after all, although only infants in Christ.
God the Holy Spirit has in fact broken in upon them and made them new creatures in union with Jesus.
But their behavior, their worldliness, their fleshly behavior is such that he could not speak to them as spiritual and as maturing disciples.
Their behavior, their worldly behavior, precludes that.
They’re still living far too much for the old patterns according to the old preferences and priorities of the world.
What is your Diagnosis?
As God examines your spiritual condition, will he find someone who ought to be mature and making progress in godliness but who is in fact, fleshly and infantile and immature?
Will he look at your life as a Christian and write in the case notes next to your name, “Failure to thrive.” A stunted Christian who refuses to grow up is a pitiful thing. A Christian who refuses to grow up is a pitiful thing. Paul’s diagnosis; it’s a striking, challenging diagnosis, isn’t it?
The Cure for Divisions: Glorifying God
What is Apollos? What is Paul? What sort of thing are they?” He de-pedestalizes them.
He topples them from the pedestal on which the Corinthians had begun to place them.
· They are only servants, he says, agricultural laborers, farm hands.
as he’ll go on to explain. That’s all they are.
· They’re not the ones to whom you owe your salvation.
· All the emphasis is on God’s continuous action.
Paul’s farming metaphor completely undercuts the cliquish behavior of the Corinthians. The ones planting and watering must work together, yet both of them are powerless
without the one causing the growth (cf. Mark 4:26–28).[5]
The cure for division is turning away from self and setting our eyes on the one God we all glorify.
When our attention is focused on our Lord, as it always should be, there will be no time and no occasion for division.
When our attention is on Him it cannot be on ourselves or on human leaders or human factions.
Apollos and Paul were simply the servants through whom you believed. They were the instruments, not the source, of salvation.
As Paul had reminded them earlier, he had not died for them and they were not baptized in his name (1:13).[6]
Paul was saying in effect, “No one builds a movement around a waiter or busboy, or erects monuments to them.
Apollos and I are just waiters or busboys whom the Lord used as servants to bring you food. You do not please us by trying to honor us. Your honor, your glory, is misplaced. You are acting like the world, like mere men.
Build your monuments, praise the One who prepared the spiritual food we delivered.”
The world honors and tries to immortalize great men because men are the highest thing it knows. The world cannot see beyond itself. But Christians know God—the Creator, the Sustainer, the Savior, the Lord of the universe, and the Source of all things. He alone is worthy of honor.
The Question
When, by God’s grace, we come to see that our Christian lives have been stunted and immature now for far too long, to whom do we turn for new life to grow up?
for a growth spurt, as it were? Paul says, verse 6, “God gave the growth” – in the past – and verse 7, “God still gives growth” in the present.
Don’t look to men for the grace that only God can give you.
God gives the growth
Don’t look to pastors for life only the Lord can supply.
While you boast in Paul or you boast in Apollos, what would the equivalent today be?
The truth is, we are all one, Paul says. Verse 8, “He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field.” We’re all on the same team, working together in God’s field as His fellow laborers but only He gives the growth.
Where should you look for grace when you have failed to thrive?
Grace Covenant Church, did you hear that? Does that penetrate? God gives growth numerically, spiritually, and corporately in our lives together and individually in our private Christian lives one by one. No pastor, no plan, no program.
Growth is God’s business, and it only comes from Him.
When we forget that, here’s what tends to happen.
We tend to look to leaders instead of to the Lord for our growth. And we either lionize them because we believe they have the answer or we demonize them because we believe they’re the problem.
And what begins to happen is the church fractures, divisions begin to arise, strife and jealousy percolate to the surface. And acting in a merely human way, acting according to man, our growth is stunted and we fail to thrive.
If you're a Christian
If you’re a Christian, Jesus is on the throne of your heart; He’s Lord.
Perhaps you’ve been trying to live as if there we not true. Well, Paul is saying to us it’s time to repent.
Spiritual immaturity is the symptom of our refusal to bend the knee to King Jesus.
It is the idolatry of pride in your heart and of self-reliance.
Time to begin to say again, “The dearest idol I have known, what’s that idol be, O Lord, help me to tear it from Thy throne and worship only Thee.
I want Jesus first. I want Jesus the most. I want only Jesus to be the source from which my life comes.
Bring me back to Him. I want to come back to Him.”
If we would do that, I think we’d find ourselves more profoundly united and we’d find ourselves beginning to grow. May the Lord help us then to turn back to God, who gives us growth.
[1]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1984). 1 Corinthians (p. 68). Moody Press.
[2]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1984). 1 Corinthians (p. 69). Moody Press.
[3]Vang, P. (2014). 1 Corinthians (M. L. Strauss, Ed.; p. 40). Baker Books.
[4]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1984). 1 Corinthians (p. 71). Moody Press.
[5]Vang, P. (2014). 1 Corinthians (M. L. Strauss, Ed.; p. 42). Baker Books.
[6]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1984). 1 Corinthians (p. 73). Moody Press.
[7]MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1984). 1 Corinthians (p. 74). Moody Press.